There was never a dull moment when he was around, biting the ears of umpires, red-carding spectators or giving away Jonty Rhodes shirts for booze

Sidharth Monga23-Dec-2010Of all South African cricketers, I remember Fanie de Villiers best. He was a beautiful outswing bowler and bowled effective offcutters to mix them up. He got Sachin Tendulkar out a number of times in limited-overs cricket, caught at short midwicket, with the slightly slower offcutter, which became a template for bowlers for some time during the mid-nineties. Most of all, though, I remember how, during the Titan Cup in 1996, he would stick the old ball up his armpit and use the sweat from there to shine one side of it.When I met him it was only natural that I asked him about that. Also, didn’t the others find it disgusting? “They were wiping it on their arse,” de Villiers shoots back. “No they didn’t have any problem.”Everybody sweats. Guys are doing that too []. It’s similar.” And wait for this one. “Spit is worse than armpit.” And he makes a mock guttural sound before pretend-spitting on his hand and rubbing it on the ball. “Khrrgghh.”Wherever he toured, the people loved de Villiers. He was always chatting to the crowds from the boundary, playing tricks with the umpires, and travelling on his own in foreign countries.De Villiers once bit David Shepherd’s ear to get an lbw call. “One of our rugby players [Johan Le Roux, in 1994] bit the ear of the New Zealand captain [Sean Fitzpatrick],” de Villiers remembers. “It was in the paper that day, and the same day I bit David Shepherd’s ear because he didn’t give me an lbw decision. And he was screaming and I was holding on and he was pulling. And the ear stretched out that far from his head. And the next day, the paper said, this is an old South African problem. The picture was in the paper and David signed it for me. In a Test match.” The crowd had a ball.During that tour de Villiers went to his county, Yorkshire, for a Test. When he had first gone there, as a young Afrikaner who couldn’t speak English, he learned a lot of tricks but had a tough time with the local dialect. “Difficult, but I communicated. I fought. I couldn’t hear a flippin’ note. They sounded pissed every time.”Back to Headingley in 1994 and this happened. “I was signing autographs, and I looked up and Allan Donald bowled the ball. The ball came my way and I ran and picked it up and someone’s autograph book was in my one hand, and it was yellow and red, very shiny. It was the end of the over and I kept it in my pocket. I bowled my first ball, I bowled my second ball, and the third one was lbw – and not out. I kind of remembered I had this book with a yellow-and-red thing, and I pulled the book out and red-carded the umpire. And the Long Room behind me went boo. Old-school ties. The rest of the crowd loved it. So I went past him [Shepherd] and red-carded the long room.”Once in England a paper cup flew onto the ground, and he put the ball in the paper cup and bowled. Chaos. First ball of the game.

“I bit David Shepherd’s ear because he didn’t give me an lbw decision. He was screaming and I was holding on and he was pulling. And the ear stretched out that far from his head. And the next day, the paper said, this is an old South African problem. The picture was in the paper and David signed it for me”

I want to know what makes such fun cricketers such fun. To my slight disappointment, I find out it was not all spontaneous.”What you need to also realise [when we were readmitted], we were good ambassadors,” de Villiers says. “At the age of 29, you have got a university-of-life degree. You can swing people easier than when you are young. When you are young, you are scared to do anything wrong. You are worried about the coach and the manager. You are worried about everything. But when you are older, you say the right thing at the right time in the right place.”I had finished my studies, I had done my army training. The chances we took on the field to get the public on our side were very calculated. How many times did we have tea time in a Test and three or four of us stayed on the field and said to the security guys, ‘Relax man’ and got the kids on the field and gave catches to them. And then we would give them our caps. That’s a clever way of getting the crowd on your side.”I started the Mexican wave in Sri Lanka. Everybody went for tea and I stayed on the field. I said, ‘Boys sit down.’ Then I said, ‘You guys stand up.’ Then they went like that. Then I went to the next stand and said, ‘Stand up.’ Then they went a little bit and it stopped there. And I was like, ‘What is flippin’ wrong with you?’ I kind of mobilised the people. And the crowd loved me. Because I tried to do something with them. What do the players do nowadays? They don’t even look at the public.”It didn’t stop on the field. De Villiers was known for his exploits off it too. “I always would get on a train, or get into a tuk-tuk and say to the tuk-tuk driver, ‘Take me to your house.’ That was in Kolkata. And he didn’t know what to do. And he took me and I sat there with him, we had lunch and then started playing cricket out in the street.”I got [Daryll] Cullinan on a train with me in Sri Lanka, and we got off it and started playing cricket with the kids.”Jonty Rhodes got picked on a lot. “We would steal Jonty Rhodes’ shirts and swap them for beer from the breweries. For a Jonty Rhodes shirt they would give anything. We were like, ‘We want a case of brandy, a case of whiskey and six cases of beer.’ We had been doing it for three years when he found out about it. We did this around the world. Every Friday he would go, ‘Chaps, I have lost another shirt. Please help me.'”The adventurous traveller: not for Fanie de Villiers locking yourself up in your hotel room in a strange country•Getty ImagesPerhaps de Villiers chose to have much more fun with his cricket than others because it came to him the hard way. He was an Afrikaner from the countryside who didn’t know any English. “Language is a terrible barrier,” he remembers. “It is a massive barrier. More than one can think. I learned English at school, but I could only understand and read and write. When I spoke English, I sounded stupid. As an Afrikaner, sitting there, checking everybody out – these English-speaking boys plus West Indians. It was tough.”Most of his playing days were during apartheid. Then, too, he almost lost his eyes in an accident with lime when he was a lieutenant in the army. “I was blind for six-seven days and layers burned off, and it slowly started coming back again. They literally tied me to a bed, held me upside down and threw water into my eyes. Probably for three hours, four hours. It was so sore, I couldn’t close my eyes, I couldn’t open my eyes. Unbelievable. It’s amazing how you can go through that.”De Villiers went through it and more. When he was younger, he did his back in throwing a javelin. He had to get cuts on his back to fuse three vertebrae. That made his hamstrings stiff. That, along with the javelin-throwing, also perhaps explains his action.”I wasn’t the best athlete,” he says. “Over 100 metres I think Ben Johnson would have beaten me by 20 metres. What I did right was, I used to run in hard and create pace through muscles. I didn’t get it as easy as others. That made me appreciate it more than the guys [who were] getting it for nothing. But you are right, my action was all hands and… [].”De Villiers was one of the first Afrikaners to break the language barrier, as opposed to the “few who went to privileged schools”. “I was a country boy.”After a long wait came readmission, when he was the best bowler in the country – only for Ezra Moseley, a West Indian professional at Northern Transvaal, to break de Villiers’ toe with a low full-toss in the nets. No one from your country has played international cricket for 20 years, and when the chance comes, you injure yourself in the nets. Born on Friday the 13th was de Villiers.However, the man who charmed the crowds the world over in his playing days isn’t quite popular in his country now that he is an outspoken media person. He writes in the foreword of his book that he thinks he is considered “negative, jealous and miserable”. Some go so far to call him insensitive regarding race issues. It will take a lot more understanding of South Africa and its cricket before I can make my mind up on that. Until then I will know him as a cricketer who went through a lot in his life but never forgot his prime job was to entertain the people who paid good money to come to the grounds.

Carlton Baugh’s battle with Munaf Patel stood out as the contest of the day. Baugh played a rumbustious knock to lift West Indies out of a hole, and also managed to ruffle Munaf

Sriram Veera at Windsor Park07-Jul-2011Sometime in the afternoon, with the clouds drifting away to reveal the peaks of the nearby hills, this match came alive. It had Carlton Baugh at the centre of the Indian storm. West Indies were in a precarious state, despite a patient hand from Darren Bravo, and were threatening to end on a sub-150 total. It was then that Baugh seized control.Baugh is an interesting batsman. Often it appears that his skills don’t match his desire. You can sense the ambition he possesses. He had to wait long for the West Indies selectors to get disillusioned with Denesh Ramdin to get his second chance and he has shown that he is hungry to grab the opportunity. “I feel confident at the moment and am looking forward to being in the team for a long time,” Baugh said.His character came to the fore during the ODIs against India, when he batted the team through a couple of tough situations, but it was in fading light on the fifth evening of the second Test that he really starred. His character shone through the bad light. West Indies were in danger of losing the match but Baugh took control with his aggression.As he did today. He began with a slog-swept six off Harbhajan Singh but it was his battle with Munaf Patel that stood out as the contest of the day, one packed with Baugh’s adrenalin, Munaf’s desire, and MS Dhoni’s intervention. It started right after lunch with a surprise yorker from Munaf. Baugh just about pushed his bat inside the line as the ball rushed past the off stump. A couple of deliveries later, Munaf produced a leg cutter that teased the outside edge. A dismissal looked just around the corner. It was then that Baugh seemed to have decided that offence was the way to go.”I was just being positive against him. Munaf Patel is a good bowler and he can at times be unplayable,” he said later. “But when you are on the go, you have a go at pretty much everybody. I play my game regardless of what has happened before. I don’t want to be a negative player and try to push and pull. It has worked for me.”He flashed Ishant Sharma past gully before going for an on-the-up drive off Munaf in the 58th over. The ball flew again to gully and past the left of Virat Kohli. Munaf stared, Dhoni shuffled. Kohli was moved to his left. Next ball Baugh edged another drive, this time to Kohli’s right. Munaf wanted more changes. Dhoni moved midwicket to cover and transferred Suresh Raina from cover to a second gully. Munaf hurled another full delivery outside off but Baugh shouldered arms. More stares from Munaf.Baugh responded by lacing the next delivery – another full one outside off – through extra cover. Munaf wasn’t pleased and in fact didn’t collect the throw neatly; he just slapped it away. Anger or frustration? Take your pick. Baugh seized the opportunity to take an extra run to complete four runs. Munaf responded with a peach of a legcutter that went past the edge and a screaming bouncer that flew past the chest.At the end of the over, Dhoni ran after Munaf, who kept walking. Dhoni said something. You wondered what the discussion could have been about. The next Munaf over offered some hints. Baugh drove one hard to covers and expertly cut the next delivery past backward point. Dhoni had had enough. He signalled Munaf to bowl straighter and moved the second gully back to midwicket. The next delivery was in line with the stumps and Baugh stabbed it for a single.Munaf was taken off the attack and Baugh got to his fifty with a whippy flick through midwicket off Ishant Sharma. The crowd gave him a generous applause and he acknowledged the cheers with a raised bat.””If a shot is there to be played I go through with it. I am not a person who does not do that. But I don’t go hunting for it if it is not there,” he said later.Six overs later, Munaf returned from the other end and produced an uppish drive from Baugh off his second delivery. Kohli dived to his left at covers but couldn’t hold on to a tough chance. A couple of overs later, with his partners deserting him, Baugh tried to hit Harbhajan for a boundary but ended up becoming his 400th Test wicket. “”He came to me after the game was called off and asked me to sign the ball with 400 on it,” Baugh said.Until that moment, Baugh had played a rumbustious knock to lift West Indies out of a hole. And had also managed to ruffle Munaf.

It is depressing that a bowler as skillful as Zaheer Khan has missed so many games due to injuries. If he misses a large part of the England tour, it will be a loss not just to India but to cricket

Sambit Bal at Lord's 22-Jul-2011The moment Zaheer Khan stopped dead in his follow-through and bent down to feel his right hamstring, an eloquent pause hung in the media room. It wasn’t asked, but everyone understood the question: was this going to turn out to be the defining moment of the match, or of the series, so adroitly built up as the unofficial Test championship decider?Despite never looking at his sharpest, Zaheer had been the soul of India’s bowling attack on an absorbing first day during which neither wickets nor runs came easily. With Praveen Kumar swinging it too much to secure an edge, and Ishant Sharma not finding the length that English conditions warrant, Zaheer had to carry the day, and he did so by working his way through like a chess master. The England openers were drawn in to their dismissals.It is no secret that Zaheer enjoys bowling to left-hand batsmen and while much of the pre-series talk had focused on his contest with Andrew Strauss, who has been seen as fallible to left-arm swing bowling, it was Alastair Cook he snared first, with one that held its course after several that moved either way. Strauss was then baited by a sucker short ball wide of off stump, which he top-edged to deep-backward square leg.That these dismissals were replicas from 2007 – Cook at Trent Bridge, Strauss at The Oval – pointed to a design from a seasoned craftsman.Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen then built a partnership, but Zaheer returned with the aging ball, and wobbled it enough to draw an ugly flail from Pietersen and a genuine edge from Trott, before hobbling off.Injuries are an inescapable reality that cricketers, and their teams, must live with; and fast bowlers, whose day job comprises the most unnatural contortions of the human body, are particularly susceptible.The cold weather is unkind too to the hamstring and it comes under further stress when a left-arm quick bowler switches to round the wicket, as Zaheer often does. So, if the worst fears about Zaheer come to pass, it is perhaps down to wretched luck. There is, however, a pattern to Zaheer’s mid-match breakdowns that is impossible to ignore.In 2003, he raised Indian hopes with an inspired spell in Brisbane before sitting out the Adelaide Test and bailing out in the middle of the Melboune Test, leaving India with three frontline bowlers. A couple of months later, during India’s tour of Pakistan, he once again limped off the field during the Multan Test that Indian went on to win. He returned home when it became obvious that the muscle that he had pulled wasn’t going to heal in time for the final Test. In 2007-08, a heel injury restricted his tour of Australia to only one Test. Last year, he withdrew from the Test tour of Sri Lanka, and missed the opening Test in South Africa.This leaves only two away series of significance – South Africa in 2006-07, and England in 2007 – that he has been able to complete in recent years. That the career of a bowler who has grown so skillful should be defined by injuries is depressing.Zaheer knows his body better than anyone else and he has perhaps reconciled himself to the limitations it imposes on him. Some fast bowlers are blighted by chronic injuries. Shane Bond’s body never allowed him to make full use of the gift he had been granted: the ability to bowl fast with a clean action. Ian Bishop looked a worthy heir to Michael Holding before a stress fracture of the back terminated his career. And Munaf Patel has embraced the life of a trundler after beginning with thunderbolts.But even from the height of the media box at Lord’s it was impossible not to notice the girth around Zaheer’s waist. He hadn’t played a Test since January and had had no competitive cricket in six weeks. It was apparent that he was feeling his way back in the practice match against Somerset, but that he chose to rest in the second innings perhaps told a story. That he managed to rouse himself for a contest at Lord’s was proof of the mastery he has acquired over his craft. But Michael Holding, who was on air when Zaheer aborted his over, remarked straightaway he wasn’t surprised because Zaheer hadn’t looked match fit. While India remain optimistic about his chances of bowling in the second innings, the fate of this Test now rests on how well the rest of the bowling attack copes with the absence of their leader in this innings.

New Zealand struggled to post a score to challenge the home side, but their bowling managed to expose Sri Lanka’s middle order problems

Madhusudhan Ramakrishnan29-Mar-2011Sri Lanka undoubtedly started strong favourites against a New Zealand side whom they had beaten convincingly in their previous four World Cup meetings including the most recent one in Mumbai. Except for a brief while in the New Zealand innings when Ross Taylor and Scott Styris came together for a 77-run stand, it always seemed like Sri Lanka had things under control.Against a potent and varied Sri Lankan attack, it was imperative that New Zealand have a strong start. However, the loss of three early wickets put them on the backfoot immediately. Though Styris and Taylor restored the balance temporarily, there was a flurry of wickets after the batting Powerplay was taken in the 41st over. From a healthy 192 for 4, New Zealand lost their last six wickets for just 25 runs to be bowled out for 217 in the 49th over.New Zealand were expected to struggle against spin but they faced an even bigger problem in form of Lasith Malinga. His accurate and deadly yorker-length deliveries were almost impossible to score off and produced three wickets. In between, Ajantha Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan picked up five wickets while conceding just 77 runs. England managed just 48 runs in boundaries in their quarter-final defeat to Sri Lanka and though New Zealand did slightly better, they were stifled by the Sri Lankan spinners and never quite managed to dictate terms in the middle of the innings.All opposition teams have found the going extremely difficult in the final ten overs against Sri Lanka in Colombo. England scored just 56 runs and lost three wickets whereas New Zealand lost six wickets for 58. Malinga was also destructive in the game against Kenya as Sri Lanka picked up six wickets for just 15 runs in the final overs. Only Pakistan managed to play with some confidence in the final overs, scoring 68 runs for the loss of four wickets in their 11-run win.

TeamPeriod (Overs)RunsWicketsRR1s/2s4s/6sDotsNew ZealandOverall217104.4493/1216/2166Sri LankaOverall22054.5963/527/4187New Zealand0-156014.0019/56/159Sri Lanka0-156714.4617/29/161New Zealand16-4010534.2054/66/081Sri Lanka16-4010734.2835/312/297New Zealand41-505265.8820/14/126Sri Lanka41-504615.8711/06/129Upul Tharanga and Tillakaratne Dilshan started from where they left off against England and despite the fall of the aggressive Tharanga, Sri Lanka were well and truly on top for most part of the innings. They scored 132 runs in boundaries and were always above the required run-rate. New Zealand refused to go down without a fight though, and as they did in the game against South Africa, they seized the moment when Dilshan fell at the score of 160. The loss of Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara for the addition of just nine more runs brought New Zealand right back into the contest. However, with Daniel Vettori completing his quota of overs, Sri Lanka were able to achieve the target after scoring some easy runs off the part-time bowlers.Although Sri Lanka managed to win the game quite comfortably in the end, they will be concerned about the loss of wickets in the middle which made the chase far tougher than it was meant to be. Their middle order has hardly been tested in this tournament and there has been only one fifty scored by a lower middle-order batsman (No. 5 to No. 9). In contrast, Pakistani and Indian lower middle-order batsmen have scored four and three fifties respectively.More stats from the game
Scott Styris moved ahead of Martin Crowe on the list of highest run getters for New Zealand in World Cups. His tally of 900 is now second only to Stephen Fleming’s 1075 runs. His half-century was his third fifty-plus score against Sri Lanka in World Cups following his centuries in the 2003 and 2007 World Cup games.With his haul of 2 for 42, Muttiah Muralitharan moved to within three wickets of equalling Glenn McGrath as the highest wicket taker in World Cups. He now has 68 wickets from 39 matches at an average of 19.05 with four four-wicket hauls.This was Muralitharan’s 39th appearance in World Cups, the highest for a Sri Lankan. He went past Sanath Jayasuriya’s record of 38 appearances.Sri Lanka became the first subcontinent team to reach two consecutive World Cup finals. Overall, this is their third appearance in the final.With their half-centuries, both Dilshan and Sangakkara went past 400 runs in the World Cup. Dilshan, with 467 runs., leads the run tally in the World Cup so far and Sangakkara is third with 417 runs.

Plays of the day from the 3rd ODI between England and Sri Lanka at Lord’s

Andrew McGlashan at Lord's03-Jul-2011Drop of the day
At Headingley Mahela Jayawardene was given a life and converted the chance into three figures so at Lord’s he repaid the favour by spilling Alastair Cook at slip on 15. It was a regulation chance, especially for one of the finest slip fielders in the game, as Cook pushed at Nuwan Kulasekara, and the chance flew at waist height to Jayawardene who only succeeded in palming it away. Like any good batsman, Cook converted his chance into three figures but it wasn’t enough for victory. And by the end of the match Jayawardene was almost back in credit having made an elegant 79.Bunny of the day

It now seems that if it isn’t a left-arm spinner removing Kevin Pietersen then it’s Jeevan Mendis. The part-time legspinner removed Pietersen with a long hop at The Oval, had him caught at long on at Headingley two days ago and at Lord’s made it three in a row when Pietersen top-edged to deep square-leg. “We know he has a problem against left-arm spin and legspin,” Dilshan said after the Leeds match, but Mendis is no Shane Warne who Pietersen had a fine record against. Pietersen again looked in fine form as he moved to 41 off 43 balls and he could barely watch as the catch swirled towards Suraj Randiv in the deep. At some point soon the form needs to be translated into a big score.Double miss of the day
Sri Lanka’s fielding tends to swing from the sublime to the ridiculous and there was one moment during England’s innings that could be an entry for ‘What happened next?’ Ian Bell was at the start of his tortured innings when he left a ball from Lasith Malinga and Kumar Sangakkara let it through his legs. But that wasn’t the end. Dinesh Chandimal raced around from the fine-leg boundary and managed to reach the ball, yet proceeded to slide over the top of it to give England four byes. Chandimal almost managed a smile, but probably realised it wasn’t the best thing to do.Tempo the day

Alastair Cook backed his batsmen to continue playing their shots after the Headingley defeat, but apart from the captain there weren’t many of them in the first 10 overs as England limped to 32 for 2. Cook hit all five boundaries as neither Craig Kieswetter or Jonathan Trott found the rope. Sri Lanka, though, had no such problems and despite losing Tillakaratne Dilshan in the fourth over they reached 61 for 1 after their first 10 overs and again it was Mahela Jayawardene who led the way.Frustration of the day
It was another tough day for Stuart Broad who found out in the morning that he’d been fined 50% of his match fee for “serious dissent” towards Billy Bowden at Headingley and nothing that happened at Lord’s will have improved his mood. He actually bowled with hostility on a flat pitch to give Chandimal a roughing up but each glove fell short of fielders. Broad came close to blowing a fuse when Jayawardene played gently towards backward point and Eoin Morgan fumbled, then his return was also missed to give away an overthrow. Stood mid-pitch Broad bit his lip, rubbed his eyes and put his head in his hands.Farce of the day
As the match drew to a close we had the scene of Angelo Mathews blocking out an over from Graeme Swann and another from Jade Dernbach to give the chance for Dinesh Chandimal to score a century at Lord’s. The pair also both declined runs and it became heated in the middle when the 12th man came out with instructions and was immediately ushered away by the umpire, only for Mathews to claim he then needed a new bat. At the end of it, though, Chandimal launched Tim Bresnan over long-on for six and raised his arms in celebration towards the away dressing room. No one from England clapped.

Every empty space at the Feroz Shah Kotla is covered with advertising, but the crowd at the stadium did not need a hoarding to tell them of Sachin Tendulkar’s upcoming landmark

Sharda Ugra at the Feroz Shah Kotla08-Nov-2011The Feroz Shah Kotla must be the most insalubrious ground in the cricket world; as it rises to its full height, every possible empty space is wallpapered with advertising hoardings, for a range of products that is a study in itself.It must be the only ground in the world where Sachin Tendulkar can look up from his crease and in his peripheral vision see himself blown up to a two-storey-high megascale, holding a sticker-free cricket bat. It is an advertisement for the cement company he endorses, one of three cement companies that find themselves represented at the stadium.The unconventional products advertised around the ground included the following: Kamla Pasand and Rajshree (paan masala), Chaini Khaini (chewing tobacco), Haywards (beer), Pataka Chai (tea), Oxyglow Cosmetics, Makita Power Tools, Sanjay Ghodawat Group (a business group in Kolhapur with interests in agriculture, chemicals, real estate, engineering, textiles etc), Red Chief (footwear) and Kaspersky Anti-Virus.In the middle of this melee of screaming logos, clashing colours and subliminal advertising, a gripping Test match unfolded. Like a racy gangster novel, it was enveloped in smoky atmosphere, replete with unpredictable incident and loaded with the constant possibility of corkscrew turns of events.Virender Sehwag stripped it of all portent, until of course he decided to leave, with fury-inducing extravagance. India were still 181 short, and the ball was 18 overs old, getting softer and harder to score off.Enter the “so we meet again” pair of Dravid and Tendulkar. The two oldest (they will both be, jeepers, 39 in less than five months), most skilled men in the Indian dressing room collected their runs as methodical weavers pluck out the warp and the weft. The smoke thickened, the light faded and the setting sun stood like an orange lozenge in the sky.All the while, the stadium was building up to an event. The sense of expectancy was driven not by television, not by a flashing scoreboard (that responded to minor events on the field with ambiguous messages like “Brilliant/ Great hands/ What a shot”), not by PA announcements, but by the much-condemned Delhi crowd. Their numbers were paltry on the Tuesday but their voices could be heard scattered in the stands. They were counting down.Not with the help of radio commentary or egged on by TV experts; they had nothing but their own calculations to go by. Twenty eight was the figure in their heads. The last leg of that journey, from 20 to 28, took 28 balls. When the number arrived from Tendulkar’s blade, with a humble single off Devendra Bishoo, the crowd leapt to its feet, applauded and cheered. Only then did the scoreboard mention the landmark and flash: “Congrats Sachin, 15,000 Test runs.”To discover what the shouting was all about, Tendulkar checked the screen. When he saw the number, he raised his eyes to the sky, his bat to his team-mates and the crowd, accepted Dravid’s congratulations and stood at the non-striker’s end as the over played itself out. Four balls later, with only three overs of play left, Dravid almost ran himself out. He had not grounded his bat when crossing over and was perilously close to being in mid-air when the bails came off. The third umpire’s decision took an age and, with no replays on the screen, the crowd was mumbling in anxiety, Dravid holding his breath. The result had him exhaling, the crowd cheering and chiding his carelessness.The day ended with a back-foot drive through extra cover from Dravid, the ideal image the Indian fans would want to take home. The teams returned to their dressing rooms with 124 runs left for India to get, a game to be won or lost, Dravid and Tendulkar still around, and that Other Big Number luring the crowd back for one more morning.Kotla’s hideous advertising? It was like it had vanished.

In the past eight months, the humiliation England have heaped on their two highest-profile opponents has been devastating

Andrew Miller at The Oval19-Aug-2011Under cloudless skies and with their expectation levels at rock-bottom, India somehow opened the second day at The Oval with their best hour of cricket in approximately 21 sessions – dating back to Stuart Broad’s seminal spell on the second day at Nottingham. By the end of it, however, they’d been condemned to another unquantifiable nadir, as England’s punishing discipline and gargantuan appetite for runs made a mockery of that Test ranking that has long since been relinquished.If India cannot pull out of their tailspin and claw something back from this game, they will have slipped to No. 3 in the world, with the prospect of facing the newly chastened Australians in the winter – who, if today’s far-reaching Argus Report is anything to go by, have at least licked their Ashes wounds and set about the healing process with clean bandages. Whether England can sustain their current intensity will be a question for future Tests on different continents – and on this showing why shouldn’t they? – but in the past eight months, the humiliation they have heaped on their two highest-profile opponents has been devastating.It can now be said, without equivocation, that English cricket has never had it so good, for the stats they’ve amassed are simply incapable of lying. Last week at Edgbaston, Alastair Cook made a career-best 294 as England passed 700 for the first time in 73 years; today at The Oval, Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell battered their way to an English third-wicket record stand of 350, the 14th triple-century stand in England’s 915 Tests, and yet their third in the space of 13.And what of tomorrow, when Bell will resume on 181 not out, with a chance of posting England’s seventh double-century in the past 15 months, and beyond that, potentially something even more extraordinary? With seven wickets in hand and, tellingly, a nightwatchman at the crease, it’s safe to assume that a declaration flurry is a long way off yet. “Bat once, bat deep” has been the motto all summer long, and there’s precisely no reason to tinker with that formula with nine sessions remaining.Pietersen was a self-satisfied man at the close, and with every imaginable reason. The angst that surrounded his long and laborious return to form has been forgotten, now that he’s amassed three of his four highest scores in the space of 15 knocks. “I don’t think we’re surprising ourselves,” he said, “because if you look how hard this team has worked in the last two years, the wheel has to turn and we’re very lucky to all be dovetailing. If someone misses out, someone else gets the runs and that’s what good teams do.”Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen in a 350-run stand combined to put England in complete command again•AFPThe one troubling performance of England’s day was a plod of an innings from their only misfiring batsman, Andrew Strauss, who nudged two runs in an hour before swiping a drive to the keeper. However, as any Indian who is currently longing for the days of Sanjay Bangar will testify, there are several ways to build towards a Test victory. By the time Strauss departed with the morning drinks break looming, that new ball was 38 overs old, and ripe for a hammering from two batsmen who love nothing better than raising the tempo of an innings.”One of the principles our team lives by is using up as much of the new ball as possible,” said Pietersen. “We aim to get opposition bowlers into their third, fourth and fifth spells, because then we know we will end up with some opportunities for big scores.” He didn’t actively name-check Strauss in his explanation, but the inference was clear enough. This is a team with a plan, and right now it’s all coming together.Stopping England scoring runs at the moment is like catching custard in a sieve. It can happen occasionally, but eventually it all floods through, and today it was the turn of the two most aesthetically pleasing players in the team to scoop their fingers into the bowl. Whereas Cook’s incredible 294 at Edgbaston prompted Shane Warne to tweet he’d never seen anything so dull, no such accusations could be flung in Bell and Pietersen’s direction, as they thrilled a sun-soaked crowd with the purity of their performance.With their contrasting heights and complementary approaches, Bell and Pietersen simply love batting together. That much was apparent way back in Faisalabad in 2005, when both men combined to score their second Test hundreds, but in the past five alliances – 116, 71, 110, 162 and now 350 – their returns have gone through the roof. At Adelaide during the Ashes, Bell’s quick feet provided the perfect foil for a newly carefree KP, as Australia were butchered past the 600 mark; at Southampton in June, they provided a rain-dampened fixture with one of the sprightly stands of the summer.In the past it could be said that Bell tended to shadow his more demonstrative partner, not least during their 286-run stand at Lord’s in 2008, when Bell slipped along to his highest Test score of 199 while South Africa were pre-occupied with the performance of their former countryman. Since the injury to Jonathan Trott, however, Bell has had no place to hide at No. 3, and crucially, nor has he sought to for an instant. He outgrew No. 6 with incredible speed during the Ashes, and now, with two 150-plus scores in his last three innings at first drop, he’s letting it be known that No. 5 is beneath him as well.”Belly’s been magnificent over the last 12-18 months,” said Pietersen. “He’s grown as a person, he’s matured so much, and I love the fact he’s scoring his runs so fluently. He’s so pleasing on the eye when he’s batting, and it’s just nice that he’s gone to his 16th Test hundred. The hard work he’s put in since [being dropped on] the Windies tour is paying dividends.”We have contrasting styles,” he added. “I’m taller, he’s shorter, and I batted pretty successfully with Paul Collingwood in the same way. Balls that he drove were really full balls for me, balls that I drove were nice punchy balls for Colly. It’s a pretty similar story, and long may it continue.”England’s current onslaught is relentless. In their last 20 Tests, dating back to the tour of Bangladesh in March 2010, they have amassed 33 hundreds – 21 of which have either been undefeated or in excess of 147 – and on only two occasions, at Edgbaston against Pakistan and during Mitchell Johnson’s Test at Perth, have they failed to reach three figures. India, by contrast, have yet to amass a team total in excess of 288 in six attempts on this tour.”There’s lots of swing, lots of seam, and it’s going to spin miles tomorrow,” said Pietersen. “In the first couple of sessions it’s going to be flat, and then when we bowl it’s going to be all over the shop.” He said it with a smile, but the scary thing is he almost certainly believed it. The confidence of this outfit knows no bounds right now.

Plenty of boundaries and wickets. But the entertainment was questionable

Scott Hazebroek09-Jan-2012Choice of game
This match, between second and third on the ladder, shaped up to be one that could decide who hosts the second semi-final. The Strikers had a great net run-rate leading into the match, and with a win, would jump over the Scorchers into second spot. However, the Scorchers were in hot form, with three straight wins. A Scorcher win would put them behind the first-placed Hobart Hurricanes on net run-rate only. My prediction was the Perth Scorchers by a small margin.Team supported
Being a Perth boy, I have supported the Scorchers throughout the tournament and that didn’t change tonight.Key performers
The two players who stood out for me were from the winning home side.Herschelle Gibbs set up the innings, scoring 65 off 41 balls with 12 boundaries. Brad Hogg’s 3 for 20 off four overs was a fantastic performance and his run-out of Cameron Borgas, although lucky, sealed the game. He was very difficult to play and his spell turned the match.One thing I’d have changed about the day
I would have changed the colour of the security guards’ vests. The bright orange often made it difficult to distinguish them from the Scorchers.Face-off I relished
During the first over, Alfonso Thomas bowled a bouncer to the Scorchers captain Marcus North. An appeal for caught-behind was turned down, and after North blocked the next ball back to the bowler, Thomas feigned throwing the ball. This started the contest in a tense manner, but it quickly settled down.Wow moment
I said “whoa” when Adam Crosthwaite advanced down the pitch and smacked a cover-drive off Nathan Coulter-Nile. It was smoked; the fielder at wide mid-off didn’t stand a chance. Sublime.Fancy-dress index
Six men in orange costumes that covered them from head to toe were cheering the Scorchers. But they were pretty pathetic. Their idea was to run onto the ground after each boundary and fall on top of one another. There were also a few ladies on stilts dressed as butterflies, and while walking around, they almost poked above the sightscreen!Cutting it a bit too fine, maybe?
With one minute until the scheduled start time, two Strikers bowlers and an assistant walked onto the ground near the pitch, set up two flexible stumps, and started bowling. The umpires walked past them at 6:01pm, and they started to pack up. The game eventually got underway at 6:06pm.Blooper of the day
Late in the Scorchers’ innings, Paul Collingwood hit a ball firmly along the ground to long-on. Tom Cooper slid and easily gathered the ball but his momentum rolled him over. Which would have been all right had the ball not slipped from his grasp. Which still would have been all right had the ball not made contact with his leg, and as a result gone over the rope. He got the loudest cheer of the day.Crowd meter
It was a sell-out at the WACA. The crowd was very vocal, especially in supporting Hogg. Even the MC, Lachy Reid, started a ‘Ho-ggy, Ho-ggy’ chant. Whenever Hogg went near the ball, there was a massive cheer. Towards the end of the night, when he was taking a few wickets, the crowd went bonkers!Although a few sixes were hit, none were caught. It was a shocking performance from the crowd.Entertainment
I was rather disappointed on the fire front. There were only a few flames shot up near the western bank, but no fire when the batsmen walked out to bat. And there were way too many songs between balls. Where are the good, not-so-old days when you’d only play songs at the end of overs? However, the songs were pretty good. After the Scorchers’ first four, “Hot in the City” was slightly amusing. And “Another One Bites the Dust” was funny when some Strikers got out. But “Good Old Collingwood Forever”, when the Englishman went out to bat, took the cake on the songs front.The only entertainment during the innings break was the orange men playing a very… well… interesting match of cricket.Underachiever
The underachiever was the non-members section of the crowd. They are quite famous for their many “snakes” made out of beer cups. However, tonight there was only one tiny little thing, and it wasn’t even big enough to get ejected. But they were brilliant with their cheering for Hogg and whenever a Strikers’ player made a mistake.Twenty20 v ODIs?
I have pretty much grown up with T20s and love the quickest format of the game. ODIs are okay but they just drag on, and the middle of the innings are quite boring. So I prefer T20 to ODIs, but I think if there is too much of it, Test cricket, my favorite format, could die a slow, painful death.Banner of the day
A person had written on a Scorchers banner: “Gilchrist, where are you?” It was appropriately shown after Luke Ronchi was out for a duck.Marks out of 10
8.5 for the on-field entertainment, controversy, Hoggy’s performance, and the Scorchers win. But the match loses a mark and a half for the tame ending.Overall
It wasn’t as close as I would have liked, but there were some nice big hits and controversial decisions, and as a Scorchers fan I enjoyed the game. The Strikers will have a job to do if they want to make the finals, although their net run-rate is okay.

Discipline from the four-man pace attack meant the batsmen were forced to search for runs, and they perished in the process

Brydon Coverdale at the WACA13-Jan-2012This series was meant to be a battle between a grand Indian batting line-up and an exciting Australian attack full of promise. After nine days of cricket, that contest has been won by the local bowlers. Comprehensively. The series is still, technically, alive. But by stumps on the first day in Perth, David Warner had his hand poised to pull the plug.Warner gave the crowd lasting memories with his 69-ball hundred, but it was Ben Hilfenhaus, Peter Siddle, Ryan Harris and Mitchell Starc who really made this Australia’s day by dismissing India for 161. Harris and Starc were additions to the side after the victory in Sydney, but it seems not to matter what arrangement of Australia bowlers takes the field this home season. They always do the job.Nine times from nine innings they have bowled the opposition out this summer, for an average total of 225. Last season, England averaged 409 per innings in the Ashes. That three members of this WACA attack were part of the toothless group that faced England only highlights how far they have come in 12 months. It also serves to emphasise how poor India’s batsmen have been.Those two factors, combined with a green-tinged pitch, encouraged Michael Clarke, the Australia captain, to send the opposition in for the second time in his short captaincy career. For the first time under his leadership and the selection tenure of John Inverarity, a four-man pace attack was employed. Both were calculated gambles, and Clarke is proving more worthy of the “Punter” nickname than the more conservative Ricky Ponting.Spin might be missed later in the game but more so by India, who also chose to go in without a slow bowler. By leaving out Nathan Lyon, who was handled with ease by India’s batsmen in the first two Tests, Australia played to their strengths, and on the first day at the WACA, it worked.Australia’s success was largely due to the pressure they built. Maidens. A build-up of tension that lured batsmen into a stroke, into doing something they shouldn’t have, trying to get the scoreboard moving. Seventeen of the 60 overs Australia completed were maidens. Conditions helped them in the morning, but their hard work was really on display after lunch.As VVS Laxman and Virat Kohli tried to blunt the bowlers with a 68-run partnership, the Australia quicks toiled. They didn’t fall into bad habits, which would have been so easy to do. The ball had largely stopped moving but they kept hitting the right lines. Serious width was rare. Loose deliveries were notable because they were so out of the ordinary.The Australia bowlers kept plugging away at what they call the “fifth or sixth stump line”, a corridor in which they feel the India batsmen eventually cannot help themselves from wandering down. It was this line that accounted for both Kohli and Laxman, as they played at deliveries from Siddle that they could have left and were caught trying to get the scoreboard ticking.After both dismissals Siddle sunk down to the ground, squatting and taking in some deep breaths, a sign of the heat and the physical toll the day was taking on the Australia fast bowlers. At least they had a captain who knew how to rotate his men. The spells became shorter as the day wore on and the bowlers kept stretching, keeping themselves ready for another crack.The greenest member of the attack, Starc, was reintroduced late and benefited from taking two tail-end wickets. He swung the ball in to the right-handers for most of the day, using the ocean breeze to his advantage. His lines were the most inconsistent of any of the bowlers, but it was not so much as to be costly for the team.In the morning, Hilfenhaus hooped the ball late, in the manner he has become accustomed to this season. His outswinger that removed Virender Sehwag for a duck was almost perfect, angling in and moving away from an off-stump line, forcing the batsman to play. His remaining three wickets came to nothing shots from the batsman, Gautam Gambhir and MS Dhoni among them. But it was the consistent pressure he exerted that drew the mistakes.Hilfenhaus picked up four wickets, Siddle three and Starc two. In his first Test back from injury, Harris managed only one, but it was big one: Sachin Tendulkar lbw to a ball that nipped in off the seam. Harris went for less than two an over. It could be argued he didn’t make the batsmen play enough, but that only increased the need for India to rotate the strike.Soon after tea, India lost their tenth wicket. Some had fallen to good balls, others to poor shots, but right through the innings Australia kept up the pressure. Again, India’s experienced batsmen failed to handle it. It’s been happening all series. And the Border-Gavaskar Trophy will slip from their grasp because of it.

Plays of the Day from the one-off T20 international between England and West Indies

George Dobell at Trent Bridge24-Jun-2012Disappointment of the Day
Alex Hales’ dismissal for 99. In a game where personal milestones sometimes obscure team achievement, the disappointment of Hales and his home crowd was perfectly understandable. Had Hales scored just one more, he would have become just the seventh man to record a century in a T20 International and it would have been the first for England. He later said that he could not have asked for a more obliging delivery from which to score his century – it was a quick half-volley, really – but instead he was bowled. He need not worry: it is a team game and here he produced the matchwinning contribution.Wicket of the Day
West Indies recovered well through Dwayne Smith, Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard, but the early wicket of Chris Gayle was still a vital moment in this match. It meant West Indies endured a sluggish start – they scored only 38 off their first eight overs – and, despite some steep acceleration towards the end of their innings, they never fully made up time. Gayle was the victim of good planning and good fast bowling: cramped for room by a sharp, short ball from the distinctly hostile Steven Finn, Gayle was unable to control the stroke and top-edged to fine leg. It was the first of two very well judged catches from Jonny Bairstow and also reward for some smart captaincy from Stuart Broad, who had just moved the deep fielder from square to fine leg.Catch of the Day
Sometimes, given his skill in the outfield, it is hard to remember that Bairstow is also a wicketkeeper. His catch to dismiss Lendl Simmons, running in from the midwicket boundary and diving, was exceptionally good. Bairstow not only covered the ground quickly but, despite the potential distraction of Hales, running back from midwicket, threw himself forward to cling on to the ball. It was an example not only of Bairstow’s value to England, but also of the team’s athleticism and skill in the field. In a format where games can be decided by such moments, it provides England with a substantial advantage.Shot of the Day
As ever in T20 cricket, there were several contenders for this: Ravi Bopara, with some elegant cuts, and Hales with a series of pulls and hooks, were impressive, but for sheer power West Indies’ batsmen were hard to beat. Smith, in particular, hit the ball murderously hard and struck five sixes in all. The second of them, a lovely straight drive off Graeme Swann, landed in the second tier of the Radcliffe Road Stand and almost hit a cameraman. It was an enormous hit.Milestone of the Day
So long has Broad been a fixture of the England team that it can easily be forgotten how youthful he remains. Broad celebrated his 26th birthday at Trent Bridge and, while some people might balk at the idea of working on their birthday, the prospect of leading his side to victory on his home ground would have softened the blow. Already the most-capped player in this side, Broad could have the best part of a decade of international cricket ahead of him and may well break every England wicket-taking record in all formats. He and Graeme Swann already hold the record (41 apiece) for most T20I wickets for England.